The Balanced Scorecard: Measures That Drive Performance Evaluation in Auditing Firms

© The Author(s) 2020. The purpose of this article is to establish a framework with its related measures for the development of a balanced scorecard (BSC) for auditing firms. A BSC was developed providing the detailed measures for performance evaluation comprising five key elements: learning and growth, clients, internal business processes, financials, and audit-related perspectives of corporate ethics. A survey was undertaken along with descriptive statistics and confirmatory factor analysis in four auditing firms, to assess the external auditors’ opinions for the proposed BSC measures. The results suggest that the development and use of the proposed BSC measures will enhance audit firms’ performance. Audit firms would have a better understanding of the various drivers of performance and strategies thereby creating a competitive advantage. The results are valuable to not only audit firms but also auditing oversight boards who could direct the design of their monitoring process by understanding performance systems in different size audit firms

An Apparatus for Measuring Heat Transfer Rate and Thermal Conductivity of Tubes جهاز لقياس معدل الانتقال الحرارى والتوصيلية الحرارية للمواسير

الملخصان معدل انتقال الحرارة والتوصيلية الحرارية هما من أکثر الخصائصالمباشرة والعملية لتقييم أداء المواد لنقل الحرارة ولا توجد طريقة واحدة يمکناعتمادها لقياس الخواص الحرارية للمواد ولکن تقتصر کل طريقة قياس لتحديدالتوصيلية الحرارية على نطاق محدد من قيم التوصيلية الحرارية ودرجاتالحرارة وأنواع معينة من المواد ولا يتم تطبيق طرق قياس التوصيلية الحراريةعلى عينات عشوائية ولکن لکل طريقة يلزم وجود عينة قياسية لها بتصميموأبعاد محددة ومثال على ذلک يتم استخدام عينة دائرية بقطر نصف بوصةمغطاة بطبقة من الجرافيت لتکون معتمة تمامًا في طريقة القياس من نوعيةFlash Laser . ولکن في طريقة Guarded Hot Plate يتم استخدام لوح علىشکل متوازى مستطيلات ذو دقة تصنيع عالية و بأبعاد محددة.بالإضافة إلى القيود السابقة ، تتطلب بعض التجارب معادلات رياضيةخاصة بالإضافة إلى معرفة تامة بالخواص الفيزيائية للمواد وقاعدة معلوماتتتطلب فى بعض الطرق جهاز حاسوب وتناقش هذه الورقة تحديد معدل نقلالحرارة والتوصيلية الحرارية للمواسير فى صورتها التجارية باستخدام جهازبسيط جديد يستخدم معادلة فورييرللاشکال الاسطوانية فى الاتجاه القطرىلتعيين التوصيلية الحرارية للمواسيروتم فى هذه الدراسة قياس معدل التدفق الحرارى عبر عينات مواسير منالکربون استيل ثم تحديد التوصيلية الحرارية لهذه العينات وکانت القيم التى تمقياسها مقاربة لتلک الموجودة بالمراجع المعتمدة والموصفة لهذه المواد فعلىسبيل المثال تم تعيين التوصيلية الحرارية لعينة من الکربون استيل SA 53 Bبقطر داخلى 39.5 مم وقطر خارجى 44.5 مم وبطول 38.5 مم وکانت قيمةالتوصيلية الحرارية 15,2 وات /متر.کلفن بحيود - 5% عن القيمة المذکورةبالمرجع الأمريکى ) American Power Research Institute EPRI ( وهى16 وات /متر.کلفن. وتم أيضا قياس التغير فى معدل التدفق الحرارى لعيناتمواسير عليها رواسب وکان الفارق فى معدل التدفق الحرارى للعينات قبل وبعدالتنظيف واضحا باستخدام الجهاز حيث کانت الزيادة فى معدل التدفق الحرارىبعد التنظيف حوالى 0,8 وات مما يعنى أن الجهاز له حساسية وأدائية عاليةتسمح بالمقارنة بين عينات المواسير للحصول على أعلى المراجل کفاءةAbstract-The heat transfer rate and thermal conductivity are the most direct and realistic properties for evaluating the performance of materials to transfer heat. Each measuring method for determining the thermal conductivity is limited for specific range of thermal conductivities, temperatures and specific types of materials. Thermal conductivity measuring methods are applied to standard samples. Those samples are supplied in a specific design with defined dimensions i.e. are not similar to the forms used in the industry. For example, a circular specimen of half inch finished with a layer of graphite to be completely opaque is used in the Flash Laser Method. But in Guarded Hot Plate method a highly precision plate with definite dimensions is used.In addition to previous limits, some experiments require certain mathematical equations as well as advanced knowledge of physical properties of materials. This paper discusses the determination of heat transfer rate and thermal conductivity of industrial pipes in its commercial configuration using a new simple apparatus which uses the known Fourier equation for radial direction heat transfer in cylindrical pipe.In this study, the rate of heat transfer was measured for samples of carbon steel tubes and then the thermal conductivity of these samples was determined. The values measured weresimilar to those found in the approved and standard referencesFor these materials, for example, the thermal conductivity of a sample of carbon SA 53B was determined with an internal diameter of 39.5 mm and an outer diameter of 44.5 mm and a length of 38.5 mm. The thermal conductivity value was 15.2 W / m2. It was 5% - the value indicated by the American reference Power Research Institute EPRI (16 W / m(.in addition to that the difference between the heat transfer rate of three samples before and after cleaning were studied, the difference was about 0.8 Watt which means that the device has high sensitivity and performance

ECO FRIENDLY ARCHITECTURE– A PRELUDE IN THE SULTANATE OF OMAN

In developed countries, the issue of green architecture and sustainability practices has been a major concern to building professionals and the community for many years. On the contrary, in the developing countries, the same issues are beyond public awareness. The Sultanate of Oman is one of the countries whose national economy is mainly based on nonrenewable energy resource, oil. In addition, the recent plummet in the price. of fossil fuel ushered Oman to seek alternative energy resources, and to think of adopting new policies. Unprecedented in the Third world, the national competition for Eco House Design was announced. Five examples of Eco Houses were designed and constructed during the first phase. This research aims to shed light on this remarkable Omani experience among the developing countries. The methodology of the research is incumbent on a theoretical foundation of previous related references analysis and a cross comparative case study. Other tools were used like interviews and site visits. The research succeeded in outlining the design criteria of eco-friendly architecture and clarifying the starting point taken by the Oman to adopt the green and issues. In addition, two examples of the Eco-houses in arid zones were provided. In the future, further steps have to be taken to re-direct the Omani society to adopt the green attitude

Parameter estimation of electric power transformers using Coyote Optimization Algorithm with experimental verification

In this work, the Coyote Optimization Algorithm (COA) is implemented for estimating the parameters of single and three-phase power transformers. The estimation process is employed on the basis of the manufacturer's operation reports. The COA is assessed with the aid of the deviation between the actual and the estimated parameters as the main objective function. Further, the COA is compared with well-known optimization algorithms i.e. particle swarm and Jaya optimization algorithms. Moreover, experimental verifications are carried out on 4 kVA, 380/380 V, three-phase transformer and 1 kVA, 230/230 V, single-phase transformer. The obtained results prove the effectiveness and capability of the proposed COA. According to the obtained results, COA has the ability and stability to identify the accurate optimal parameters in case of both single phase and three phase transformers; thus accurate performance of the transformers is achieved. The estimated parameters using COA lead to the highest closeness to the experimental measured parameters that realizes the best agreements between the estimated parameters and the actual parameters compared with other optimization algorithms

Hybrid photovoltaic-thermoelectric generator powered synchronous reluctance motor for pumping applications

The interest in photovoltaic (PV) pumping systems has increased, particularly in rural areas where there is no grid supply available. However, both the performance and the cost of the whole system are still an obstacle for a wide spread of this technology. In this article, a hybrid photovoltaic (PV)-thermoelectric generator (TEG) is investigated for pumping applications. The electric drivetrain comprises a synchronous reluctance motor and an inverter. A control strategy for the drivetrain is employed to execute two main tasks: 1) driving the motor properly to achieve a maximum torque per Ampere condition and 2) maximizing the output power of the PV system at different weather conditions. This means that the conventional DC-DC converter is not used in the proposed system. Moreover, batteries, which are characterized by short life expectancy and high replacement cost, are also not used. It is found that the motor output power and the pump flow rate are increased by about 9.5% and 12% respectively when the hybrid PV-TEG array is used compared to only using PV array. Accordingly, the performance, cost and complexity of the system are improved. Measurements on an experimental laboratory setup are constructed to validate the theoretical results of this work

Solar array fed synchronous reluctance motor driven water pump : an improved performance under partial shading conditions

An improved performance of a photovoltaic (PV) pumping system employing a synchronous reluctance motor (SynRM) under partial shading conditions is proposed. The system does not include the dc-dc converter that is predominantly being utilized for maximizing the output power of the PV array. In addition, storage batteries are also not contained. A conventional inverter connected directly to the PV array is used to drive the SynRM. Further, a control strategy is proposed to drive the inverter so that the maximum output power of the PV array is achieved while the SynRM is working at the maximum torque per Ampere condition. Consequently, this results in an improved system efficiency and cost. Moreover, two maximum power point tracking (MPPT) techniques are compared under uniform and partial shadow irradiation conditions. The first MPPT algorithm is based on the conventional perturbation and observation (P&O) method and the second one uses a differential evolution (DE) optimization technique. It is found that the DE optimization method leads to a higher PV output power than using the P&O method under the partial shadow condition. Hence, the pump flow rate is much higher. However, under a uniform irradiation level, the PV system provides the available maximum power using both MPPT techniques. The experimental measurements are obtained to validate the theoretical work

Enhancing the Performance of Educational Systems using Efficient Opinion Mining Techniques

Governments and educational authorities around the world are emphasizing performance evaluation of educational systems. Opinion Mining (OM) has gained acceptance among experts in various regions, including the preparation space. The proposed model involves Two modules: the data preprocessing module and the opinion mining module. The main objective of our article is to enhance educational systems through the analysis of student comments, teacher comments and course comments. Furthermore, the proposed model uses a bundling task to make groups of packs for students from its comments. The datasets were 10,000 instances, 80% of which were for training and 20% for testing. The results showed that K-Means Algorithm had the best accuracy time /Sec of 0.03. The correctly classified 8,000 instances were equal to 96%, and incorrectly classified 2,000 instances were equal to 4%, Accuracy of the model is 95%, Recall is 94.8% and F-Measure is 93.7% between others algorithms. clustering and Association Rule Mining phases Algorithms namely Chi-Square test is good quality than Others Algorithms

Sub Pixel Classification Analysis for Hyperspectral Data (Hyperion) for Cairo Region, Egypt

Traditional hard classifiers in remote sensing applications can label image pixels only with one class, so landcover (e.g. trees) can only be recorded as either present or absent. This approach might lead to inaccurate imageclassification and accordingly inaccurate land cover. The proposed analysis technique provides the relativeabundance of surface materials and the context within a pixel that may be a potential solution to effectivelyidentifying the land-cover distribution. This research is applied on the central region of Cairo using hyperspectralimage data, which provides a large amount of spectral information. A spectral mixture analysis approach is usedon Hyperion data (hyperspectral data) to produce abundance images representing the percentage of the existenceof each material/land cover with a pixel. The uniqueness of this study comes from the fact that it is the first timeHyperion data has been used to extract land cover in Egypt.Keywords: Spectral Mixture Analysis, Hyperspectral Data, Hyperion Data, Cairo, Egyp

Finite element based overall optimization of switched reluctance motor using multi-objective genetic algorithm (NSGA-II)

The design of switched reluctance motor (SRM) is considered a complex problem to be solved using conventional design techniques. This is due to the large number of design parameters that should be considered during the design process. Therefore, optimization techniques are necessary to obtain an optimal design of SRM. This paper presents an optimal design methodology for SRM using the non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm (NSGA-II) optimization technique. Several dimensions of SRM are considered in the proposed design procedure including stator diameter, bore diameter, axial length, pole arcs and pole lengths, back iron length, shaft diameter as well as the air gap length. The multi-objective design scheme includes three objective functions to be achieved, that is, maximum average torque, maximum efficiency and minimum iron weight of the machine. Meanwhile, finite element analysis (FEA) is used during the optimization process to calculate the values of the objective functions. In this paper, two designs for SRMs with 8/6 and 6/4 configurations are presented. Simulation results show that the obtained SRM design parameters allow better average torque and efficiency with lower iron weight. Eventually, the integration of NSGA-II and FEA provides an effective approach to obtain the optimal design of SRM